preamp and pickup brands

can anyone give me some advice on pre-amp/pickup brands/prices adn stuff...im tryin to get a custom jazz together, but i dont know anything about the pickup brands and stuff....i need to know what brands are good, and what kind of price id have on em...two jazz pickups w/teh preamp....
thanks for your help

I really like what Carey Nordstrand is doing with his pickup line....high quality custom pickups designed to fill niches within the existing market. You get the same custom pickups that he uses in his top-of-the-line basses but without the "custom" price. Two models are currently available...the NJ4 for a vintage tone and the NJ4SE (split coil no noise) for a more aggressive, growly modern tone.

Just one thing to say about David King's review on my J & U-Retro pres, he says:

"John is redesigning the circuit to improve the noise ratio"

I've since done this. We had a problem in that the lower output pickups, such as some of the Barts, didn't have enough signal level above the noise floor of the EQ sections. (Originally designed to work with the higher output Fender J style pickups) Although the input gain stages could be adjusted up to increase the pickup level, accordingly it made a big jump between active and passive levels.

We put an upgrade path in place for older Retros and current Bart users now seem happy.